Interplay Between Fantasy And Reality In The Gothic

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in gothic fiction is the fact that the fantasy almost always exists within the reality. On a basic level this means that the stereotypical gothic castle where the story ( a fantasy ) unfolds is always in a real place. Dracula is fantasy but takes place in the "real world", The Overlook Hotel and the things that go on there in The Shining are pure gothic fantasy but the hotel is set in a real region of the Colorado Rockies and is near real towns such as Sidewinder ( named after a real pass through the Rocky Mountains that really does get dangerously snowed-in in winter ). I could go on for hours but you probably get the point by now. It is very rare that a gothic text is set in a purely fantastical world - modern sci-fi gothic can be an exception. You also find that the writer very rarely begins the story in the gothic setting, it is introduced via the real world. In The Shining we travel through Colorado to get to the Overlook for instance. This helps make the ...

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becomes more and more gothic until it culminates when the central setting - "a microcosmic arena where universal forces collide" ( Malin cited in King Dense Macabre : 315 ) - is reached. "The faery solitude of the place; with its turrets of misty blue, its courtyard, its spiked gate" ( Carter "The Bloody Chamber" : 13 ). "…The great bulk of the mansion above them, whose façade loured over the village." ( Carter "The lady of the House of Love" : 99 ).



The whole valley floor was spread out below them, the slopes they had
climbed … falling away with such dizzying suddenness that she knew to
look down there for too long would bring on nausea and vomiting.
...

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